Researchers from Keele University and an international team of astronomers have reported for the first time that a white dwarf and a brown dwarf collided in a 'blaze of glory' that was witnessed on Earth in 1670.

Researchers have found white dwarf stars with masses close to the maximum stable mass (called the Chandrasekhar mass) are likely to produce large amounts of manganese, iron, and nickel after they orbit another star and explode ...

An international group of astronomers has conducted a study of a peculiar white dwarf known as WD 1145+017 that showcases periodic transits of planetary debris. The new research, presented in a paper published August 22 on ...

Using data provided by Gaia satellite, two American astronomers have discovered a white dwarf-main sequence binary in the open cluster NGC 752. It is the first white dwarf found in this cluster. The finding was detailed by ...

The Earth's building blocks seem to be built from 'pretty normal' ingredients, according to researchers working with the world's most powerful telescopes. Scientists have measured the compositions of 18 different planetary ...

Drop a marble and a cannon ball off the Leaning Tower of Pisa at the same time and they will hit the ground at the same time. That fact is explained by Albert Einstein's theory of gravity—general relativity—which predicts ...

Einstein's understanding of gravity, as outlined in his general theory of relativity, predicts that all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass or composition. This theory has passed test after test here on ...

Astronomers have identified the first metal-polluted white dwarf star from the Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) provided by ESA's Gaia satellite. The newly found star received designation GaiaJ1738−0826. The finding is detailed ...

White dwarf

A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. Because a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth, it is very dense. Its faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored thermal energy. White dwarfs comprise roughly 6% of all known stars in the solar neighborhood. The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910 by Henry Norris Russell, Edward Charles Pickering, and Williamina Fleming;, p. 1 the name white dwarf was coined by Willem Luyten in 1922.

White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not too high—over 97% of the stars in our galaxy., §1. After the hydrogen-fusing lifetime of a main-sequence star of low or medium mass ends, it will expand to a red giant which fuses helium to carbon and oxygen in its core by the triple-alpha process. If a red giant has insufficient mass to generate the core temperatures required to fuse carbon, an inert mass of carbon and oxygen will build up at its center. After shedding its outer layers to form a planetary nebula, it will leave behind this core, which forms the remnant white dwarf. Usually, therefore, white dwarfs are composed of carbon and oxygen. It is also possible that core temperatures suffice to fuse carbon but not neon, in which case an oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarf may be formed. Also, some helium white dwarfs appear to have been formed by mass loss in binary systems.

The material in a white dwarf no longer undergoes fusion reactions, so the star has no source of energy, nor is it supported against gravitational collapse by the heat generated by fusion. It is supported only by electron degeneracy pressure, causing it to be extremely dense. The physics of degeneracy yields a maximum mass for a nonrotating white dwarf, the Chandrasekhar limit—approximately 1.4 solar masses—beyond which it cannot be supported by degeneracy pressure. A carbon-oxygen white dwarf that approaches this mass limit, typically by mass transfer from a companion star, may explode as a Type Ia supernova via a process known as carbon detonation. (SN 1006 is thought to be a famous example.)

A white dwarf is very hot when it is formed but since it has no source of energy, it will gradually radiate away its energy and cool down. This means that its radiation, which initially has a high color temperature, will lessen and redden with time. Over a very long time, a white dwarf will cool to temperatures at which it will no longer be visible, and become a cold black dwarf. However, since no white dwarf can be older than the age of the Universe (approximately 13.7 billion years), even the oldest white dwarfs still radiate at temperatures of a few thousand kelvins, and no black dwarfs are thought to exist yet.